Latest ESA satellite images show spreading oil slick

Images captured over the weekend by the European Space Agency show a rapidly spreading oil slick advancing toward landfall on the northern Gulf Coast.

In the smaller detail — an optical image resolved Sunday by ESA’s  Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer — dense oil swirls near and immediately north of the wrecked Deepwater Horizon site. Darker bands of thinner oil spread northeast of the main slick, paralleling the Alabama and Florida barrier islands. A sharp white band of clouds from a spring storm system approaches from the west.

The black and white image below was also captured Sunday by Envisat’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR). Unlike visible photography, ASAR images are capable of 24-hour operation, even through cloud structures. The radar imaging is particularly effective at resolving the smoother ocean surface of an oil spill area.

Envisat’s capture clearly shows the slick spreading pass Louisiana’s Chandelier islands, stretching toward the mouth of Mobile Bay. Response crews are expecting oil to be ashore as far east as Pensacola, Florida, by Wednesday.

Even in areas still untouched by oil, the slick’s effects are already hitting home. At least 20 dead sea turtles were discovered along the Mississippi Gulf Coast this weekend. While not obviously oiled, state biologists speculate that the turtles either breathed in light oil at the surface or ingested fish contaminated by the slick.

Fishermen hauled in their final catches over the weekend before officials closed most waters to both commercial and sport fishing. Crews have begun securing their boats behind inflatable oil barriers, idling seafood processing facilities and their workers for the indefinite future.

Image credits: European Space Agency